Here’s an excerpt taken from the title story—it’s about weed and Texas and a hairdresser named Kathleen:

“The haircut would be easier to get than the weed, but he wanted the weed first so he could be stoned during the haircut. For the weed I had to approach a Texan. The Texans hated us, but some hated us less than others. Luckily, a kind woman bummed a cigarette off me, called me “Sweetheart,” and agreed to help with both my tasks. Her name was Kathleen, and she was the on-set hairdresser.

Kathleen didn’t give a shit about the higher-ups like Tipplehorn. Just did her thing in the hair trailer, smoking bats and talking on speakerphone to her teenage daughter who was spending the summer at an arts camp ­outside Denton. When they said good-bye, Kathleen waved her hand as if her daughter could see her from the other end of the line. She said, “Girl,” and her daughter said, “Bye now,” and Kathleen looked in the mirror and saw me behind her, squint-eyed in the barber’s chair, finally sun-shaded, ­almost asleep.”

Participating is a piece of cake: just log onto Twitter when the chat begins at 1:30pm, follow Jewcy and the Jewish Book Council, and tweet your questions for Wilson (@BubblesDepot) with the hashtag #JLit.

Read more about Twitter book club here.

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We’re thrilled to announce that our Twitter book club collaboration with the Jewish Book Council is back! We’ll be chatting (well, tweeting) with Jean Hanff Korelitz, author of You Should Have Known, on April 2 at 1:30pm Eastern Time.

Her latest novel is a juicy, unputdownable, emotional, psychological literary thriller, you guys—think Gone Girl meets Atmospheric Disturbances. Here’s the synopsis:

Grace Reinhart Sachs is living the only life she ever wanted for herself. Devoted to her husband, a pediatric oncologist at a major cancer hospital, their young son Henry, and the patients she sees in her therapy practice, her days are full of familiar things: she lives in the very New York apartment in which she was raised, and sends Henry to the school she herself once attended.

Dismayed by the ways in which women delude themselves, Grace is also the author of a book, You Should Have Known, in which she cautions women to really hear what men are trying to tell them at the very beginning of the relationship. But weeks before the book is published a chasm opens in her own life: a violent death, a missing husband, and, in the place of a man Grace thought she knew, only an ongoing chain of terrible revelations.

Participating is a piece of cake: just log onto Twitter when the chat begins, follow Jewcy and the Jewish Book Council, and tweet your questions for Korelitz with the hashtag #JLit.

Read more about the Twitter book club here, and enter the draw to win  a copy here!

The post Join Our Twitter Book Club on April 2 with Jean Hanff Korelitz! appeared first on Jewcy.

Join us today at 1:30 p.m. EST for the first Twitter Book Club of 2013. Times of Israel writer Matti Friedman joins us and the Jewish Book Council to discuss his book, The Aleppo Codex, the never-before told mystery behind an ancient text’s alleged disappearance. We’ll be talking Jews, books, and secrets, and everyone’s invited.

Follow along on Twitter with the hashtag #JLit and be sure to follow @MattiFriedman and @JewishBook.

What to do before then:

• Cliffsnotes: Listen to Friedman discuss the book with Vox Tablet host Sara Ivry.

• Context: Read Codex vs. Kindle, Matti Friedman’s Visiting Scribe blog post for the Jewish Book Council.

• Reviews: Peruse the New York Times Magazine’s review of The Aleppo Codex, which they call a “High Holy Whodunit.”

We’ll see you at 1:30!

The post Twitter Book Club: Matti Friedman Joins Us Today at 1:30 p.m. appeared first on Jewcy.

Marc Tracy and Franklin Foer’s new collection Jewish Jocks: An Unorthodox Hall of Fame, a series of essays profiling some of the most influential Jewish personalities in the world of sports, has won the 2012 National Jewish Book Award for best Anthology. Jonathan D. Sarna’s When General Grant Expelled the Jews, published by our cousins at Nextbook Press, is a finalist in the American Jewish Studies category. You can view the full list of award-winners here.

Tracy, a former Tablet staff writer and longtime friend of Jewcy (he wrote about Krusty The Clown, the great Jewish entertainer on The Simpsons, for our Network Jews series), recently stopped by Tablet’s podcast, Vox Tablet, where he and Foer discussed some of the lesser-known Jewish athletes featured in the book—such as Sidney Franklin, the bullfighter from Brooklyn—as well as bigger names like Oakland Raiders manager Al Davis. Have a listen:

2012 National Jewish Book Award Winners [Jewish Book Council] Previously: Network Jews: Krusty the Clown, Jewish Entertainer on ‘The Simpsons’

The post ‘Jewish Jocks’ Wins National Jewish Book Award appeared first on Jewcy.

Novelist and 2010 Big Jewcy Jami Attenberg will join us and the Jewish Book Council for our third Twitter Book Club tomorrow at 1:30. She’ll be discussing her newest novel, The Middlesteins, and answering questions about Jews, food, and Jews and food.

Follow along on Twitter with the hashtag #JLit and be sure to follow @jamiattenberg and @JewishBook

Here are four easy ways to get ready:

• Check out Attenberg’s posts for the Jewish Book Council’s Visiting Scribes series.

• Read Adam Kirsch on Attenberg’s powerful storytelling in The Middlesteins over at Tablet.

• Take a look at Joe Winkler review of The Middlestein’s.

• Watch Vol. 1 Brooklyn’s entertaining video of Attenberg and Jeffrey Yoskowitz making pickles:

Previously: Like Jews and Books? You’ll Love Our New Twitter Book Club Partnership

The post Join Us Tomorrow For a Twitter Book Club With Novelist Jami Attenberg appeared first on Jewcy.

Join us and the Jewish Book Council at 1:30 p.m. EST today for what should be a fascinating Twitter Book Club with Shani Boianjiu, the author of The People of Forever Are Not Afraid. In the novel, the 25-year-old Israeli writer weaves together the compelling tale of Lea, Avishag, and Yael, three friends from a small village near the Lebanese border as they begin their service in the Israel Defense Forces.

Use the hashtag #JLit to follow along with the discussion, and don’t hesitate to jump in with questions of your own—just make sure you include Boianjiu’s Twitter handle (@ShaniBoianjiu) and #JLit.

Before our chat, don’t miss:

• Jacob Silverman’s Culture Kvetch column about Boianjiu’s novel and the unique challenges of being a successful young writer.

• The Jewish Book Council’s review of The People of Forever Are Not Afraid.

• Boianjiu’s three blog posts for the Jewish Book Council’s Visiting Scribe series.

• Boianjiu’s New Yorker fiction, published this summer.

• The Jewish Book Council’s contemporary Israeli literature book list.

Previously: Like Jews and Books? You’ll Love Our New Twitter Book Club Partnership

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We’re thrilled to announce our partnership with the Jewish Book Council on their great Twitter Book Club series. We’re huge fans of the JBC (we love their Prosen People blog), and are excited to team up with them.

Here’s the deal: Every month or so, we’ll have an exciting author on Twitter with us discussing his or her new book. You can ask questions directly (we will be!) or just follow along in real-time our brand new hashtag #JLit. Check out the transcripts of some our favorite Twitter Book Clubs past: Nathan Englander, David Bezmozgis, and Dara Horn.

Tune in Tuesday, October 23, when Doreen Carvajal will be answering questions about her new book, The Forgetting River. We’ll be tweeting up a storm from 1:30-2:10 p.m., and we hope you will be too! Until then, you can find the full archive and game day rules here.

Twitter Book Club Schedule:

October 23, 1:30PM-2:10PM: Doreen Carvajal, The Forgetting River

November 20, 1:30PM-2:10PM: Shani Boianjiu, The People of Forever Are Not Afraid

December 12, 1:30PM-2:10PM: Jami Attenberg, The Middlesteins

(image via Shutterstock)

The post Like Jews and Books? You’ll Love Our New Twitter Book Club Partnership appeared first on Jewcy.

The folks at The Jewish Book Council just announced the winners of the National Jewish Book Awards.  Cynthia Ozick and Gal Beckerman are among the big winners.  [Watch our interview with Beckerman here]

Everett Family Foundation
Jewish Book of the Year Award
When They Come For Us, We’ll Be Gone: The Epic Struggle to Save Soviet Jewry (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
Gal Beckerman

Jewish Book Council
IMPACT Award
Harold Grinspoon

Jewish Book Council
Lifetime Achievement Award
Cynthia Ozick

American Jewish Studies
Celebrate 350 Award

Winner:

The Rebbe: The Life and Afterlife of Menachem Mendel Schneerson (Princeton University Press)

Samuel Heilman and Menachem Friedman

Finalist:

Jewish Bialystok and Its Diaspora (Indiana University Press)
Rebecca Kobrin

Anthologies and Collections

Winner:

The Cambridge Guide to Jewish History, Religion, and Culture (Cambridge University Press)
Judith R. Baskin and Kenneth Seeskin, eds.

Finalists:

Promised Lands: New Jewish American Fiction on Longing and Belonging (Brandeis University Press/UPNE)
Derek Rubin, ed.

Jewish Cultural Studies, Volume 2, Jews at Home: The Domestication of Identity (The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization)
Simon J. Bronner, ed.

Biography, Autobiography, and Memoir
In Memory of Simon & Shulamith (Sofi) Goldberg

Winner:

Dreyfus: Politics, Emotion, and the Scandal of the Century (Metropolitan Books/Henry Holt and Company)
Ruth Harris

Finalists:

The Prime Ministers: An Intimate Narrative of Israeli Leadership (The Toby Press)
Yehuda Avner

Moses Montefiore: Jewish Liberator, Imperial Hero (Belknap Press/Harvard University Press)
Abigail Green

Backing Into Forward (Nan A. Talese/Random House)
Jules Feiffer

Children’s and Young Adult Literature

Winner:

Under a Red Sky: Memoir of a Childhood in Communist Romania (Frances Foster Books/ Farrar , Straus and Giroux)
Haya Leah Molnar

Finalists:

Rabbi Harvey vs. The Wisdom Kid: A Graphic Novel of Dueling Jewish Folktales in the Wild West (Jewish Lights Publishing)
Steve Sheinkin

The Orphan Rescue (Second Story Press)
Anne Dublin

An Unspeakable Crime: The Prosecution and Persecution of Leo Frank (Carolrhoda Books/Lerner Publishing Group)
Elaine Marie Alphin

Contemporary Jewish Life and Practice

Winner:

Walking Israel: A Personal Search for the Soul of a Nation (Thomas Dunne Books/Macmillan)
Martin Fletcher

Finalists:

The Sabbath World: Glimpses of a Different Order of Time (Random House)
Judith Shulevitz

Sacred Strategies: Transforming Synagogues from Functional to Visionary (The Alban Institute)
Isa Aron, Steven M. Cohen, Lawrence A. Hoffman, Ari Y. Kelman

Education and Jewish Identity

Winner:

Sacred Strategies: Transforming Synagogues from Functional to Visionary (The Alban Institute)
Isa Aron, Steven M. Cohen, Lawrence A. Hoffman, Ari Y. Kelman

Finalists:

Ramah at 60: Impact and Innovation (National Ramah Commission)
Mitchell Cohen, Jeffrey S. Kress, eds.

Learning and Community: Jewish Supplementary Schools in the Twenty-First Century (Brandeis University Press/UPNE)
Jack Wertheimer

Fiction
JJ Greenberg Memorial Award

Winner:

To the End of the Land (Knopf/Random House)
David Grossman; Jessica Cohen, trans.

Finalists:

The Invisible Bridge (Knopf/Random House)
Julie Orringer

The Instructions (McSweeney’s)
Adam Levin

Nemesis (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
Philip Roth

History
Gerrard and Ella Berman Memorial Award

Winner:

Early Modern Jewry: A New Cultural History (Princeton University Press)
David B. Ruderman

Finalists:

Crown of Aleppo: The Mystery of the Oldest Hebrew Bible Codex (Jewish Publication Society)
Hayim Tawil and Bernard Schneider

The Prime Ministers: An Intimate Narrative of Israeli Leadership (The Toby Press)
Yehuda Avner

Untold Tales of the Hasidim: Crisis and Discontent in the History of Hasidim (Brandeis University Press/UPNE)
David Assaf

Holocaust

Winner:

Remembering Survival: Inside a Nazi Slave-Labor Camp (W. W. Norton & Company)
Christopher R. Browning

Finalists:

The Death Marches: The Final Phase of Nazi Genocide (Belknap Press/Harvard University Press)

Daniel Blatman; Chaya Galai, trans.

The Yad Vashem Encyclopedia of the Ghettos During the Holocaust (Yad Vashem Publishers)
Guy Miron and Shlomit Shulhani, eds.

Illustrated Children’s Books
Louis Posner Memorial Award

Winner:

The Rooster Prince of Breslov (Clarion Books/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
Ann Redisch Stampler; Eugene Yelchin, illus.

Finalists:

Modeh Ani: A Good Morning Book (EKS Publishing)
Adapted by Sarah Gershman; Kristina Swarner, illus.

Feivel’s Flying Horses (Kar-Ben Publishing)
Heidi Smith Hyde; Johanna van der Sterre, illus

Modern Jewish Thought & Experience
Dorot Foundation Award in Memory of Joy Ungerleider Mayerson

Winner:

The Koren Mesorat HaRav Kinot: The Complete Tisha B’Av Service with Commentary by Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik (Koren Publishers Jerusalem and the Orthodox Union)
Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik

Finalists:

The Ten Commandments: How Our Most Ancient Moral Text Can Renew Modern Life (Simon & Schuster)
David Hazony

Silver from the Land of Israel: A New Light On The Sabbath And Holidays From Rabbi Abraham Kook (Urim Publications)
Rabbi Chanan Morrison

Outstanding Debut Fiction
Foundation for Jewish Culture’s Goldberg Prize

Winner:

Rich Boy (TWELVE Books/Hachette)
Sharon Pomerantz

Finalist:

Displaced Persons (William Morrow/HarperCollins)
Ghita Schwarz

Scholarship Nahum M. Sarna Memorial Award

Winner:

From Continuity to Contiguity: Toward a New Jewish Literary Thinking (Stanford University Press)
Dan Miron

Finalists:

Yehuda Halevi (Schocken Books/NextbookPress)
Hillel Halkin

Glory and Agony: Isaac’s Sacrifice and National Narrative (Stanford University Press)
Yael S. Feldman

The Wisdom Books: Job, Proverbs, And Ecclesiastes: A Translation With Commentary (W. W. Norton & Company)
Robert Alter

Orthodox by Design: Judaism, Print Politics, and the ArtScroll Revolution (University of California Press)
Jeremy Stolow

Sephardic Culture
Mimi S. Frank Award in Memory of Becky Levy

Winner:

Yehuda Halevi (Schocken Books/Nextbook Press)
Hillel Halkin

Finalist:

The Dönme: Jewish Converts, Muslim Revolutionaries, and Secular Turks (Stanford University Press)
Marc David Baer

Women’s Studies
Barbara Dobkin Award

Winner:

Memoirs of a Grandmother: Scenes from the Cultural History of the Jews of Russia in the Nineteenth Century, Volume One (Stanford University Press)
Pauline Wengeroff; Shulamit S. Magnus, trans.

Finalists:

In Scripture: The First Stories of Jewish Sexual Identities (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers)
Lori Hope Lefkovitz

A Jewish Feminine Mystique?: Jewish Women in Postwar America (Rutgers University Press)
Hasia Diner, Shira Kohn, Rachel Kranson, eds.

Writing Based on Archival Material
The JDC-Herbert Katzki Award

Winner:

The Balfour Declaration: The Origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict (Random House)
Jonathan Schneer

Finalists:

Scorpions: The Battles and Triumphs of FDR’s Great Supreme Court Justices (TWELVE Books/Hachette)
Noah Feldman

Syrian Jewry in Transition, 1840–1880 (Littman Library of Jewish Civilization)
Yaron Harel; Dena Ordan, trans.

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